A War You Cannot Win Review

Released: Nov 6, 2012. Genre: Metalcore. Label: Prosthetic, Razor & Tie. Number Of Tracks: 12. This is without a doubt an All That Remains album. They seem to have stepped it up from previous releases.

A War You Cannot Win
Reviewed by:
crazyflamey, on november 08, 2012 2 of 7 people found this review helpful

Sound: I have been a fan of this band for a couple of years. I still remembered when "For We Are Many" came out, which was different from their previous releases but in my opinion a solid album. It is true that All That Remains is less heavy than they were in their earlier releases, but I personally think they now have a sound that works out. A "War You Cannot Win" gives the same vibes as their previous release "For We Are Many".
The album has it's moments of heavy, more old school All That Remains, but mostly consist of moments like "For We Are Many".
It seems like they have found their sound and sticked with it, in my opinion, it works. Memorable riffs, memorable choruses and well placed breakdowns make the album what it is. // 8

Lyrics: All That Remains lyrics have never really been of top notch writing, but they manage their way through the riffs and some seem to stick. The singing is very similar to previous releases. // 7

Overall Impression: This is without a doubt an All That Remains album. They seem to have stepped it up from previous releases.
If you like their previous album "For We Are Many", I would definitely recommend this album. // 8

"It seems like they have found their sound and sticked with it, in my opinion, it works." - lol no way in hell. i have no idea what they were thinking with this album and why they went in this direction. its watered down radio-friendly crap, but still are considred metalcore....anyways this is vry bland. i am very mad in where these guys decided to go. they pulled an Avenged Sevenfold on this album. they def lost a fan. bye guys.

someone who is a more rounded ATR fan should review this album. Seems like this individual doesn't know much about the band's material besides For We Are Many. That said, I feel like ATR should take a break from releasing albums. They release an album every couple years and I feel as though their sound is growing somewhat stale. If they were to release an albums less quickly they will be able to be more creative as opposed to simply releasing safe music that will get lots of radio time and as a result require less creativity to reach success. Just my opinion

well.. this album is really really soft.. when "stand up" came out i almost felt ashamed..
there's like 2 good songs on this album and thats it.. the band really starts to lose fans.
where are the days of "this darkened heart"????

The band has been around for a decade. They should feel free to make a record that isn't heavy as **** (This Darkened Heart, The Fall of Ideals). So even though it's not great, i honestly commend them for making this weak, souless, boring record. I just hope one day they give one to their old fans again.
Love this band, but 6/10 at best.

I gave the album a full listen today and I have to say that this is a pathetic excuse for a record.
'Not Fading' and 'Asking Too Much' are the only listenable songs on this release, and that's listenable not even worthy of a good.
The riffs are boring and bland, the drums play no important role aside from being there to provide a beat, the vocals are so monotone and lifeless, and the composition is such that after a minute and a half you might as well go to the next song.
All That Remains were decent on their Debut to Overcome, but For We Are Many was a big let down and this is garbage.

I may be the only one who really liked Overcome, but even that album some great riffs and iron-clad choruses, even if it was a bit poppy... I always knew they would eventually end up at this point that they're at now... anyways they just released For we are many... It's reasonable to expect that this album wouldn't be very good it's too soon.

I liked Overcome also. But nothing beats Fall Of Ideals. That album is amazing from This Calling all the way to Indictment. The first time I ever heard ATR was when Six was in Guitar Hero II (like a lot of people) and I immediately wanted more. But they kept changing their sound. I'm probably not gonna check the new record out based on where their sound has been heading. I'll keep listening to Fall Of Ideals with a little bit of Overcome mixed in.

I only liked two songs of this album, its one of the blandest pieces of shit I've ever heard. TDH and FOI were awesome, FWAM was a good album too, I really liked the experimentation. But this new release was just downright awful, it actually made overcome seem like it was a decent album. I think Rob Graves may be the person to take a lot of the blame for this, he had a hand in writing the three radio friendly tunes on the last album, at least they sounded kinda heavy... This time around he helped write half the songs. The radio tunes he helped write on this new album sounded more like hard rock/post grunge than metal.

Wow. Why do people hate new ATR so much? Im a fan of Fall Of Ideals but really? My favorite album by them by a long shot is For We Are Many. Why do people say it's watered down and crap? This album is maybe an 8.5 for me in comparison to easily a 10 for For We Are Many. It's better that a band evolves than stays the same as when they first came out.

I actually really enjoyed this album. The only things I didn't like were the slow songs and how awful the lyrics of those songs were. But I loved a lot of the songs, the breakdowns were good, but the solos were pretty bad, especially Stand Up's and Down Through the Ages.

The Fall of Ideals, Overcome and For We Are Many are 3 extremely solid releases. I thought All That Remains where pretty much one of the kings of melodic metalcore until I heard this garbage. Save your money.

This album does have some pretty crappy watered down tracks in here (Asking Too Much, Stand Up in particular) but Moments in Time and Sing For Liberty are killer. Most of their albums are kind of up-and-down with two or three skip-able songs and 4 or 5 really good ones. I'm a fan of Fall of Ideals, it's the album that got me into them, but this isn't half bad either.

This is exactly what happened with Avenged Sevenfold, the traditionalists hated the "watered down" sound, but others embraced it wholeheartedly. I'm actually really curious to see where the band goes from here.
And screw you guys "A War You Cannot Win" was a good ****ing song!